NUMBER ONE OFFICE IN ONSLOW COUNTY! It’s a tiny bit unheard of and I’m burning the midnight oil to make sure I’m contributing, but our little firm of under thirty agents is the number one office and holding for Onslow County in Eastern NC! I say this as we beat out offices/firms with multiple locations and close to one hundred agents.

Working hard, doing right, following up and quality control pay off. It’s been a tortoise vs. the hare sort of race since Keller Williams came to town but I think that’s how you win.

Orrrr. . .how helping lots of people for free reminded me how much I love what I do.

Maybe it’s the change of the season, the exhasuting heat finally lifting, the kids off to school, and work slowing a bit. . .or simply being tired from a long hot summer move/selling season for your resident Realtor (I have “Dog Days are Over” by Florence + The Machine playing now on my itunes, case in point). I was going through two sets of clothes often in a day minimum, sometimes three if you average in a gym session. . .and frankly, pretty dang burned out. . .enter a post eleven pm (my cut off on “work” calls and switch to strictly personal time. . .I’m sans hubby and kids at this stage of my life, surely, this will not be popular once that happens) call from a girlfriend in the Pacific Northwest working on a condo purchase. She was there, without her husband, trying to purchase a condo for them as a conclusion of a less than fun cross country move for her and four dogs and before he returned from overseas. She’s thrilled her real estate pal on the East Coast, who can offer advice, took her call after three glasses of wine and a fantactic dinner and stayed on the phone even after it was clear there’d be no fantabulous dog at a truckstop anecdotes.

She’s changed her mind, what to do? Two hours and several glasses of unsweet tea later my lap was hot from the whiring of my laptop. . .and she was ready to face the next morning and felt a lot less out of control. We did pro and con lists on the home she chose, what could be but probably wasn’t wrong with the three year old unit, what her options to get out were and what impact if any it would have on their bottom line and moving on to the next possible home. The next morning, a thank you text from her that said “Thanks for sparing me the mamby-pamby “how does it make you feel?” schpiel. . .I needed someone to say “don’t do that, you might get sued” or “here’s a way to do this that won’t suck later””. . .and she sent me a nice bottle of wine.

Her call sent off some sort of weird vibration in the universe and on random duty calls in the last month, had more than one client from out of state, asking lots of questions on complex transactions they were unsure of. I started to remember why I really dig my job, well, lifestyle (frankly, I get more post eleven pm calls/texts for work than from boys which is one of several reasons I think it makes it more a liefstyle).

I hope if you’re in a funk, losing focus, feeling a little like you’re going forty in a forty-five with AARP members behind you glaring. . .make an effort to kick yourself in your pants. Go to the bokstore, wander until you find something that inspires you, go for a long drive, go for the phone when it rings in off times. . .it could be your chutzpah calling.